At Filmhub, we believe in extreme ownership. Here is the book that inspired us.
Figuring out who owns something at Filmhub
As we continue to grow, it can be hard to figure out who owns something at Filmhub. This is especially difficult if you are new to the team and don’t have much historical context. There can only be one owner of any process, team, project, feature, etc. More than one owner leads to a tragedy of commons and finger-pointing.
The easiest way to figure out who owns something at Filmhub is to review the Notion page associated with the topic, process, feature, etc. It should clearly state the owner at the top.
What it means to own something
When you own something - you are the sole person responsible for it. You’re responsible for:
- Ensuring documentation is clear, findable, readable and up to date
- Necessary parties are cross-trained as needed in case you are OOO
- That thing is well world-class and taken care of or en route to becoming
- People follow and contribute to your thing to make it better
- You openly take feedback and incorporate it
- If it breaks, goes down, etc. - it is on YOU!
Figuring out a new owner for a thing we’ve identified
- First, raise that it doesn’t have an owner in the appropriate Slack channel.
- Ideally someone just puts their hand up and says ‘I’ll do it’. This can be for a fixed period, until something happens (e.g. new hire joins, X months elapse), or indefinitely. Sometimes team leads will shuffle ownership for various reasons.
- If no one puts their hand up because it’s tricky/not obvious/everyone is super busy, the relevant people that touch the thing should decide between them. These may be team leads, but not necessarily.
- To make it feel less like ‘this is your job forever now’ you could say ‘X will be the owner of this thing for Y period, after which Z should happen.’
- If you can’t work it out between team members/leads, ask @Untitled who can help be tiebreaker.
- If you team become the owner in a temporary way, part of your job as owner is to figure out the long term plan for the thing.
- If you’re struggling to prioritize the new project compared to other work, ask your team or team lead for advice.
Generally, we will keep hiring people who have an ownership mentality and are willing to raise their hands when they see a thing with no clear owner. This is better than Filmhub asking people to do it, which should be a last resort.